


Indignation's Excitation

by FullElven



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6612544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullElven/pseuds/FullElven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dub-Con. </p><p>Jace isn't himself. His thought and speech is wild, and after barging in on Liliana and threatening her, it's clear that whatever is affecting the plane of Innistrad just may be beginning to drive the Mind-Sculptor and living Guildpact to madness himself. Trying to convince herself that it's in her best interests to save the eclectic mind-mage, Liliana uses their past "connection" to anchor him and bring him back to the real world. </p><p>Based and influenced on the latest Innistrad story "Liliana's Indignation." Starts canon, then slides toward AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> I labeled this Dub-Con, because the beginning of their interactions Jace isn't fully in his right mind. When he eventually regains himself, he chooses to continue with it. 
> 
> The setting and the dialect is directly quoted from: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/lilianas-indignation-2016-04-20. I thought the story was a good set up to take it toward the romantic, and told it more from Jace's perspective in 3rd person limited than in Liliana's like the story seems to do.

“Jace, _I don’t want to hurt you anymore!_ ”

The words split the smoothed walls of his mind, cracking them like lightning, and silencing the fragments of himself. A deafening quiet filled him as he looked up at her, every last inch of him aching, the ethereal glow no longer in those blue eyes of his.

So many things he wanted to say…to ask. She didn’t want to hurt him? Had she never wanted to hurt him? Had she hurt him out of necessity? Oh, the idea that her betrayal had never been personal, that she had hurt him not just to save herself, but to save him, made his heart swell with a painful hope that part of him wanted nothing to do with.

The other part of him wanted to cling to it like a security blanket in this large, confusing plane.

“Anymore? As in, any longer? Or as in more than you already—“

“I don’t owe you any answers, and you damn well owe me some.”

Another painful ache went through his form that was built for dealing magical damage, not sustaining it. Their conversation continued, but Jace found himself starting to slowly slip again. Enough so that the good sense had left him, and it didn’t enter his mind to wrestle the zombies that had shambled in to hold him.

Enough so that he didn’t even notice their fetid stench.

He slipped a little more, the wall started to reseal, and it seemed the images of himself had recovered again to join the conversation once more. Anymore it seemed like the only voice that filled his head endlessly was his own, Liliana’s slipping in like a spectre through stone.

The discordant voices continued to talk over her, analyzing every little last word she said, arguing over one another, until suddenly they came to an agreement that Liliana seemed to see in his eyes when he stared at her through sudden silence of epiphany in his mind. “It’s full of ghosts, souls. And you want to be rid of the ghosts but keep their power for yourself. And if there’s one thing they know about here, it’s ghost—“

The voices began again, and just as soon as that clarity had found his eyes, it was gone again. So many of him conversing, and he talked back at her with them. No time to explain, all the information flooded out of him as his over-active mind practically vomited out both hypothesis and fact indiscriminately. He was losing control over it all, a drop in an ocean of chaotic knowledge being swept out in a rip tide.

It may have been easier if he couldn’t hear the Chain Veil on top of everything.

“Tell me you won’t experiment with the veil.”

A whisper of leather and cloth brushing against ageless skin filled his confused senses as she crouched before him, her zombies still holding him. There was too much, an overload, and he could barely process it. The moment his body, his _soul_ tried to anchor to the fact that she was right near his face, it flitted off to another voice, another mind, another bit of information.

But then she touched him, and his skin burned with memories that bubbled and swelled, threatening to burst through the glass ceiling in his mind. It was like a light within murky waters….a diregaf even…Still her touch had made him flinch, and there was a breath of clarity as he blinked.

“Jace, what happened to you out there?”

“Nothing. Everything. Nothing _happened._ Everything was already like this.”

Another comment sounded off away, and he tried to turn to look at the speaker, but he couldn’t. She held him firm, and burned her way further under his skin. How soft the pads of her fingers felt against a stubbled chin. He’d been far too distracted to shave lately, and even his light markings there had gone dormant but seemed more sensitive so close to her touch.

“You really didn’t do this?”

More clarity, she was breaking through those walls. “I really didn’t.”

“Oh, thank _gods,_ ” he said, and as the words left him, he began to slump. The zombies let him, and he couldn’t even think of anything else when he felt her fingers brush his scalp, his hair sliding between them easily. His eyes lulled hypnotized by it, feeling warmth spread through him, filling his heart with a painful yearning that ignored all else.

“You need some rest. Some time to think. And a bath, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

The warmth intensified, despite the fact that he was laying in the lap of a necromancer, surrounded by her dead, just a mere breath of an inch from the Chain Veil. Yet the only thing that existed was her, her touch, and the memory of a hot bath back in Ravnica, while she trailed her long nails down his pale chest to dip beneath the water…

He stirred beneath his trousers, and it was enough of a distraction as he took a quiet breath, to break through the serenity she’d brought his poor tortured mind for the voices to begin to regain their hold. Good memories of her came with the pain of a heart broken and betrayed. He wasn’t sure he could survive another round, and instinctively he retreated within his mind, just leaving an opening for the madness to shield him from it.

He pushed her hand away like it was a spider invading his space, fighting to sit up, wanting to get away from her. But as soon as it was out of his hair, it was on his own hand, trapping it between her soft touch and the cold, hard, unforgiving stone. She knew she needed to anchor him there, make him stay. He was going to get himself killed, and as much as part of her wanted to be done with that flicker of humanity he ignited in her, her cold heart panged at the thought of it.

“No time. If it’s not you—“

No more protesting. If he wouldn’t let her anchor him by speaking logically, by trying to appeal to his better reason, she’d anchor him by speaking to his terrible judgment. Her lips covered him, and while he had flinched at first, there was a soft, pained noise from him as if he were praying to those gods for this not to be a trick.

 _I’m sorry, Jace,_ she thought to herself. _I’m not ready to lose you yet._


	2. Eye of the Hurricane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liliana has her previously-living servants take Jace upstairs to rest, hoping she can get her mind-mage to relax while the enigma that is the madness of Innistrad persists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY this took so long to get up! Goodness! After reading through the rest of Innistrad, I had lost my flame for this story and just couldn't seem to pick it back up. But with the conclusion of the Kaladesh things, I found exactly what I needed to pull back to finish this one up. Thank you to all who had waited so long for this.

All sound had ceased, within the mind of Jace Beleren, and with it he had found solace enough to rest in the ravaged land of Innistrad. Liliana had her _servants_ carry him up to her bed, leaving him to rest while she saw about sending others out to finish the work she was doing.

Nightmares plagued the mind-mage, glimpses and images of a past long forgotten, slipping through his subconscious like sand through his gloved fingers. It rushed by, more in a hurry to get away than he was to try to make sense of the things he saw. He grasped for it, but objects in his mind mirror were _far_ more in the distance than they had seemed.

Lightning flashed, illuminating his pale form in its pale-blue light. He glistened with sweat, words murmured sounding nonsensical even as Liliana crossed the threshold into her room. Just one, however, passed his lips and wormed its way into her heart with such ferocity, one would think he yelled it.

“ _Liliana_ ….” He whispered, her name leaving him like a prayer to Gods who couldn’t care less.

Her own pallid features softened, and she found herself seeking reprieve in the sound of it coming from him. Just his attention was enough to pull her from the whispers of the Chain Veil, to chase the Raven Man out of her mind, and draw her to a place she hadn’t been in quite some time.

A place she often strayed away from willingly since she was young.

But as quickly as it had come, it left, and he winced like he was in pain, whispered and thrashing some in his sleep. Concern marked her face as she came to sit beside him, hearing something familiar that she’d only caught a glimpse of once or twice recently in Innistrad. While she couldn’t make out the most of it, it was the suffix that caught her and caused her eyes to widen.

“-rakul…” Indiscernible murmuring. “-rakul.”

“Jace.” She beckoned, her perfectly sculpted brows furrowing at the foolish boy. “Jace, come now, open your eyes.”

He didn’t wake. Instead he grimaced more in pain, and his runic markings began to glow once more. In his mind, he was drowning. The chants of those far from his body, but well within the reaches of his mind, burned into him like hot iron brands. He couldn’t find any escape, and hunkered down to cover his ears. In the center of that windowless room, that smooth orb seemed to vibe out a forbidding aura.

_“Jace!”_

Liliana’s voice carried through like a crack of thunder, and the walls rumbled. “Liliana!” He called back, hating the desperation in his voice. He couldn’t find the source of her voice, and the other Jace’s refused to help.

“What does she want from you? She probably just wants to use you again. You know you’re a toy. Don’t bother with her. Is there any future in letting yourself realize your feelings for her? She can’t feel for you the way you feel for her. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing, trying to forget we ever felt that way?”

“Stop it!” He shouted at them, clutching his head once more and trembling, beginning to sink down the wall just as a violet light overtook him.

Suddenly, he was waking to her scent filling him like lavender on a spring breeze, enveloping his senses and carrying him away from Innistrad. Her lips pressed to his firmly, she made a soft surprised noise when he slid his fingers up into her dark locks, and returned the kiss. Gentle, patient, both kissed one another with just the barest hint of hesitance.

When neither forced the other away, that apprehension was burned away by yearning. The protective walls they’d put up around one another breached by a Trojan horse painted with worry of a past lover they’d never thought they’d embrace again. Caution overwritten by pure desperation as Liliana moved her leg over Jace and straddled him, their kiss becoming fervent.

The sound Liliana pulled out of Jace as she nipped his bottom lip bordered inhuman, and he simply parted his lips to beckon her deeper into their passionate dance. Perfectly manicured fingernails lightly grazed his scalp before she caught a fist of messy brown hair and gripped it, pinning him to the bed.

Need pulsed through him like lightning, setting his nerves aflame. His tongue darted out to tease her bottom lip once, before she parted hers in kind to meet him. Their movements required no thought, muscle memory taking the reins to drive the other wild. Her hips set in motion as she rested her weight against his lap, fluid and firm as he hardened further beneath her.

His hands, slid down to catch her hips, gripping them and allowing his own hips to grind up against her, meeting her rhythm, and causing her to pause from their kiss to take a pleasured breath.

In that moment, violet eyes met blue, both breathless and flushed.

He started to stay something, but she squashed any chance for speech as she captured his lips once more, not wanting to hear his rationalizations, his protests, his rambling proclamations. _Don’t ruin the moment with that mind of yours._

There was no further attempt to talk from the mind mage as he met those desperate kisses with his own, fingertips fumbling in their haste to pull that beautifully tailored dress of hers up over her hips. She smiled to feel it, and leaned forward, taking the time to kiss down his stubbled jaw, trailing them light and teasing, continuing to his neck. “Gods…” He breathed, easing her dress up with her like that, before turning his attention to unfastening his pants.

She nipped his neck just enough to send a light jolt of pain that she quickly sucked away. For moments, he forgot how pants worked, how to breathe…that he was _supposed_ to be breathing at all. A gasp came seconds later, and he finished his wrestling with the laces to pull them down his hips.

It was her turn to sit up then, looking down into his eyes as she reached to simply push her panties aside. Both watched the other, expecting someone to speak up and end this foolishness before it got too far. There was no way this would end well.

His mind fogged as he felt her body hug around him as he slid within her, throbbing hard for the chance. She smirked a little, clenching herself up in response, and dragging the most beautiful groan from his lips. It took her off guard when he suddenly reached up, warm fingers brushing her cool cheek, before sliding back into her hair to kiss her while she got him seated.

This time, there was nothing desperate in that kiss. Not entirely. If anything, the desperation lay in the tone behind it. As if Jace was trying the only way he knew—sans forcing himself back into her mind—to make her see how much this meant to him. How much _she_ meant to him. As if everything in Innistrad…everything in the Multiverse…rest on her understanding that he had, still, and always would _love_ her.

It struck her, to her very core, and she had to stop herself from murmuring ‘fool’ out of habit. It was true, however, he had no idea who he loved, the very extent to the things she’d done, to the things she would do just to stay ahead, to stay alive.

“Liliana?”

She pulled back to looked down at his questioning gaze, and realized she’d stopped moving. Instantly, that smirking façade appeared, and he brushed her cheek again, shaking his head. “Don’t do that,” he whispered. “Don’t hide.”

“What do you even expect to come of this?” She asked, her voice sounding more vulnerable than confident, and it pissed her off inside to hear it.

A thousand possible answers filled Jace’s mind, one of which being the truth, many more questions that he could turn back at her, and one…one a half-truth that he knew would appease her, and give her that emotional out she was looking for. “I just…want to hear something besides the whispers for a while.”

The answer rang true. She knew it was more than that, but the words…

The Chain Veil had been silent, the Raven Man had been silent, so long as Jace’s flesh touched her flesh, his smile met her eyes, his love filled her heart…they were quiet. In the eye of a hurricane, only they existed…and powers that be help her…she _needed_ this.

Without another word, she leaned down and returned that kiss. Slow, passionate, and dare Jace let his soul believe it… _loving_. He felt her begin to move on him, her rhythm matching that of their kiss, as both let their minds float away to the pleasure.

The storm outside could not be deterred, and raged on relentlessly, shaking the walls and rattling the windows of the manor as their dance continued. Their voices were unable to be muted by the thunder as it rolled across the countryside as they sang their pleasures. Neither were aware of the time that passed, before their final pleasured cries filled the room, and they settled panting and sweat-covered in purple silken sheets.

Neither said a word, even as Liliana slid him from within her just to somewhat possessively pull him against her body. Jace wrapped his arms around her in kind, protective, cradling her against his chest. As the last of the adrenaline began to seep from their forms, the mind-mage and the necromancer both found a peaceful slumber that had evaded them for longer than they could remember.


	3. Walk of Shame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morning comes, and Jace awakes alone after a night spent in the arms of Liliana. Will the couple be able to escape the shadows of their past, or will it ultimately lead to their downfall once and for all? (Contains dialogue from Liliana's Indignation from WotC's website towards the end of the story).

“You were up early,” Jace began sheepishly as he came down the stairs to find Liliana on her ‘throne.’ “Or…whatever passes as early on Innistrad.” A quick look out the window showed that while the storm had passed, the only light was still shed by the eerie full silver moon looming above.

Liliana shrugged indifferently, plucking a juicy red-violet grape from the cut vine and plopping it into her mouth. She made a soft noise of enjoyment, and Jace found himself watching the way her lips curved into a satisfied smile…their fullness…how soft they felt against his…

He shook his head, and looked back outside. Silently, he wished she’d just say…[i]anything[/i]. Last night couldn’t have been an elaborate dream, could it? He could still smell her on his skin like an expensive perfume meant to haunt his heavy heart and taunt his yearning soul.

The necromancer said nothing, just lounging lazily as she fed herself another of those grapes.

Jace scowled.

“Scowling brings wrinkles, Jace.” She said without looking back at him.

“You would know,” he bit irritably. “Or I suppose you wouldn’t, would you. Pacts and all that.”

“A girl knows her way around a beauty regimen,” came her reply, her tone bordering on amused.

It irritated him further, and he clenched his fists tightly at his sides. Closing his eyes as he released a heavy breath through his nose and pulled his cowl up, turning to leave.

“Off to play with the spirits?” She asked, a smile on her lips that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“What do you care?” He asked, not turning around.

“I don’t.”

“Good.”

“Great.”

Jace stopped in the doorway and punched the framework with a strength that couldn’t hurt a book, wheeling on heel to face her with a mixture of anger and hurt on his young features. For a moment, Liliana saw the face of the man she had once sat up with, tracing the marred scars from Tezzeret across his back. The man she had comforted as she used him unapologetically. Her once lover-toy, chewed up and discarded, realizing all too late what he had meant to her.  
  
_Nothing. Nothing at all._ She reminded herself stubbornly.

“What is wrong with you, Liliana? Not done torturing me?” He asked through gritted teeth.

“Why ever would I torture you, when you’re so great at doing it to yourself?” She answered his question with one of her own.

He seethed. “So I asked for you to kiss me? I asked…for you to let me share myself with you in ways I had _sworn_ I never would again?”

“You certainly didn’t say no, cupcake.” She smirked.

His heart was shattering. “What was it, Liliana? What did you take from me this time? What did you need? My dignity? A warm body to share your best with for once—“

“— _watch it_ —“

“—or was it just a seed you needed to plant so that you could pluck it later and have me do whatever you needed?” He asked, though the deliverance of it, the pain in his eyes, doused the offense she had felt at his jab. Still she stood, squaring her shoulders, trying to carry that indignation through.

“You needed help.” She said simply.

He scoffed.

“You’re thinking clearly now aren’t you?” She asked, crossing her arms in a way that pressed her breasts together. He looked away, pretending he hadn’t noticed.

“I shared a bed with you last night, Liliana. I’d say that the quality of my thinking is still dubious at best.”

She rolled her eyes. “Like it or not, Jace Beleren, yours truly saved that fragile little mind of yours out of the goodness of my—“

“—cold, dead heart.” He finished for her. “Certainly, you weren’t about to call yourself a philanthropist. I know better.”

“In any event, it worked. You’re cured of whatever silliness is plaguing the plane. So.” She relaxed her stance. “I’ll accept your thanks any time now.”

“In what? Favors?”

She thought about it, her face pensive and he let out a half-growl as he sighed in frustration. “Un-fucking-believable. To think that you could ever change…but that’s the rub, isn’t it? You’re so resistant to change, you’ve spent your whole life lying, manipulating, and _selling your soul_ just to _avoid_ it.”

That hit a part of her that Liliana had thought too much a dark void to hurt, and yet it wounded all the same. In fact, for once in her life, she found herself speechless as she stared at him.

“Don’t look at me like that, Liliana. We both know that you’re too dead inside for be hurt by anything I say. If anything, you’re just put off by the fact that you can’t wrap me around your finger the way you used to. I’m not that guy, anymore, and I’m through with your games. _I’m through with you, Liliana._ ”

“Jace…” His name left her lips in such a pitiful tone that it stopped him as he turned to leave once more. “Jace, please…”

“What?” He asked, his tone clipped. He refused to look back at her. If her face even looked half as apologetic as her tone sounded, he knew he was a goner.

“…look at me.”

He closed his eyes, and forced himself to take a deep breath. “No.”

“Jace.”  
  
“ _Liliana…_ ” __  
  
“Jace…” Her voice was closer this time, and before he knew it, she was wrapping her arms around him from behind, her chin on his shoulder, her breath tickling the hair near his ear. Such a simple movement, but it sent his heart soaring with a foolish surge of hope and an aftershock of a yearning pang.

He wanted to stay in this moment. He wanted to stay with her. To live here, with her, help her with her demons. Lay in her lap, fall asleep with her fingers sliding through his wild hair. “Lili…”

It was her turn to close her eyes, hearing the way he spoke that nickname with her. The affection in it pained her, because she knew the weight of the baggage that it carried. They couldn’t do this. Not again. His hand came up to cover hers, as if he were afraid that she would pull away. Hell, perhaps she’d let him hear her worries in her moment of weakness.

“We can’t do this,” he whispered, echoing her thoughts.

“No. We can’t,” she agreed.

“You’re stronger when you don’t have me to worry about. When you can be detached to act how you need.” He moved just slightly, leaving her to make a quiet sound as if she were worried he was pulling away, but instead he turned to press his forehead against hers. She slid her arms up to rest over his shoulders, while he wrapped his around her tapered waist. “You need the cold, the dark, to numb you…so that you can stay a step ahead.”

“I do.” She whispered, as much as it pained her to admit it. “And you need a clear head… _without me_ …even if that means it’s muddled otherwise. When we’re close, I know your head is crowded only with thoughts of me.”

“Willingly so,” he admitted quietly. “My…deductive reasoning skills have been less than grand when it comes to our sordid past.”

She smirked a little at the phrasing, but it was bittersweet. Bittersweet and true. “You know what needs done then, Beleren.”

“Are you…of course you’re sure. You wouldn’t suggest letting me into your mind if you weren’t.” His heart ached, and he found his eyes tearing up a bit for it.

“Don’t start the waterworks, boy,” she whispered, and though she hid it well, her own vision had blurred.

“Right.” He said, clearing his throat. “Lili?”

“Just get on with it, Beleren.” She urged.

“Just one last thing. Please?” He asked, sounding so weak and small.

It tugged what atrophied heart strings she had left. “What?”

“I love you.” He said quietly. “I…I swore I would never admit it, not after everything, but there it is. I…love you Liliana Vess.”

When had she forgotten to breathe? She took in a breath, warding off the swooning, lightheadedness that had come. “Right. Well. Feel better?”

He frowned, looking as if someone had kicked his puppy. “Can’t you say it, just this once?”

“ _Fine._ I love _me_ too.” Smirk.

He sighed exasperatedly. “ _Lili_. Would it really kill you?”

“I don’t know, Beleren. It very well might.” She began. “Why is this so important to you? You’re going to wipe every portion of these moments we shared together from our minds. You won’t remember whether I said it or not.”

His lips parted as he started to say something, but then he closed them just as fast and shook his head. “You know, nevermind.” An otherworldly glow came to his eyes, lighting the dark room. “Are you ready?”

He had already slipped that mask back on. She’d hurt him again. “Jace…”

“…don’t. Just don’t. It’s better this way.” He said, an almost dual tone to his voice as it echoed both in the room and within her mind simultaneously.

For the briefest of moments, she felt his ache when their minds touched, and then…there was nothing.

The dead shuffled at the edges of the room, the purple glow to their eyes shifting to blue. They all stood transfixed on the two who stood still, touching foreheads, their arms around one another. Slowly, arms would drop, and soon after that their bodies parted just enough to stop touching.

Liliana recoiled when he retreated, his exit from her mind not the most graceful. Looking at him irritably, her violet eyes only caught blue unfocused ones. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, trying to pry around in my mind, Beleren?”

“No time,” he said. “If it’s not you.”

“It’s not like you to go running off on a hunch,” Liliana said, trying to keep him focused, keep him there.

“The shepherd returns to her flock,” he turned from her, wandering a little in thought.

“Is that in your book?” She asked. He looked at her, eyes unfocused as he reached to grasp his book protectively.

“You don’t get to read it.”

“I don’t want—“

“I’ll go to Thraben,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“Thraben. That’s where the cathedral is, right? That’s where I’ll find Avacyn?”

“You can’t just walk up to Avacyn and demand answers. Especially now, she will kill you.” Liliana said. _And I’m not sure she’d be wrong at this point._ She thought to herself, and was satisfied that it stung to think so.

“Thraben. Have you been there?” He asked firmly.

“Yes.”

“Will you—“

“No. I’m not going with you, Jace, be sensible. Stay here. We’ll make inquiries. We’ll find out what’s really going on.”

“We.” He echoed, a flash of lightning came again outside. When had it clouded up? “You and I are not a, _we_.” He practically spat at her. “You’re trying to keep me here.”

She looked him in the eye. "You got me, I am trying to keep you here. Because you need help, and I want to help you."

"You want to help me," he said, "but only if I'll stay with you. Only as long as it's convenient. That about sums things up, doesn't it?" The hurt mixed with irritation in his voice, even through the madness creeping into the edges.

She was growing very tired of this tirade, and called upon her necromantic power, lighting her palm purple-white. “Right now, the most _convenient_ thing I could possible do is strike you dead and stop worrying what kind of violence you’re going to stir up by shouting accusations at an insane archangel!”

He came closer and snatched her wrist and pointed her glowing palm at the center of his chest. Had he ever touched her like that?

“Do it.” He sounded crazy, his voice hoarse.

She weighed the possibilities over in her mind. It wasn’t the worst thing she could do…and he would make a good-looking corpse. After all, he was much more enjoyable when he was compliant.

"You ever have a pet when you were a kid? A mouse or something?" She asked, her hand still crackling with necromancy, careful of the way she contained it.

"I...I don't remember when I was a kid. Much anyway. W-why?” He asked, glancing down with childlike confusion at her glowing hand.

"Humor me, you must have taken care of an animal at some point."

"There was...a dog, in Ovitzia. I fed her scraps. Scratched her head when I went by."

"What happened to the dog?"

"One day I came by and she was—" He stopped, swallowed, blinked. A memory he didn’t want to touch. He didn’t like this line of questioning anymore. "Why are you asking me this?"

“How did you _feel?”_

"Sad. Pretty devastated, actually, for a while. But I—I got over it, obviously."

"Why?"

The questions were starting to bother him more and more, especially as he realized he couldn’t find her motive behind them. “Because…because I always knew it was going to end that way. Didn’t think about it, but I knew. I—Lili, _why?”_

"Because that's how I'll feel when you're dead, you idiot," she said. "Sad. For a while. And then I'll get over it. Because I always knew it was going to end that way. So don't lean too hard on my good intentions toward you. One of these days you'll find they no longer support your weight."

He let go of her wrist then, not meeting her eyes. “I’m probably going to die in Thraben,” he said simply. “Sorry in advance for that. But somebody has to know what’s going on.” With that said, Jace turned simply, and walked away.

This time, she didn’t stop him. Instead, she watched him go, then peered out the now rain-streaked window as she watched him disappear into the shadows outside. An emotion she couldn’t discern tugged at her insides as she watched him, causing her to grimace some. Catching her reflection in the glass, however, she wiped all traces of feeling from her smooth, flawless features, and returned to her throne. Grabbing her glass of wine, she settled into sipping it while she relax.

If that idiot wanted to kill himself, it was none of her business. She had other things to attend to.

 

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! I want to give a shout-out to Cloud Cuckoo who gave me the idea for the mind-wipe, as well as a link to a very insightful podcast from the creative writing team at WotC! Also, I want to drop the link to Liliana's Indignation here, so that if you've not read Wizard's canon version, you can! http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/lilianas-indignation-2016-04-20
> 
> I'll be starting a new story with them, beginning around Amonkhet, so please stay tuned! ^.^ Thanks for all the love and support!


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